'Beer Can Island' plundered by party pirates, owners vow to rebuild before sale
A party island in Tampa Bay was listed for sale last month at $14.2 million. Now, the owners want to re-open the island with a new concept, but they face the task of cleaning it up from rampant vandalism and trespassing in the six months it has been shut down.
Pine Key Island, known by Tampa Bay locals as Beer Can Island, has been a popular party spot for decades. Co-owners Cole Weaver, Russell Loomis, James West and John Anthony Gadd first purchased the island in 2017 for $64,000 as a place to store their motorized tiki bar after it became a party venue for rent.
"Owning a private island, it's everybody's dream," Loomis said. "But at the end of the day, logistics can be a little much, of course, being two miles offshore."
But since they closed the island and no longer have staff, they say there have been hundreds of trespassers and all the storage sheds have been broken into, resulting in property damage, vandalism and the theft of tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, including speakers and generators.
Loomis told Fox News Digital that he and his friend didn't know what they were getting into when they bought the property in 2017.
"We had no idea that it was such a popular boating destination and party destination," he said. "Once we bought it, slowly we learned that, and it's been a crazy ride ever since."
After they purchased the island, many locals, who enjoyed unfettered access to it, were unhappy that the owners planned to upgrade it with toilets, alcohol sales, food service, security, recreational activities, camping grounds and VIP areas that required paid memberships during parties.
Now, they're offering 1,500 people the opportunity to own a slice of Beer Can Island for $1,000 a share. The proceeds will go toward expenses like zoning, attorneys, architects, engineers, landscaping, breakwaters, sand replenishment and rebuilding the tiki bar.
The iconic nine-acre manmade island, which has been a party spot for decades dating back to the 1940s, includes another 60 acres of surrounding submerged land in the middle of Tampa Bay between MacDill Air Force Base and Apollo Beach, according to a press release announcing the island was on the market.
"Even though the island is closed to the public, hundreds of boats visit the island every weekend, including dozens of trespassers who roam the island daily," Loomis said. "Since people have been partying for decades, it's impossible to keep people off the island without staff or police there."
The property isn't zoned even though it's located in unincorporated Hillsborough County, which Loomis said has posed numerous problems. Since purchasing the island, the owners have engaged with local officials on how it should be zoned.
"We're having to jump through a lot of hoops to actually get the property zoned the way that we want, and that's something we're working on as we speak," he said. "What we want to do is get the community involved, and they can purchase shares from us."
Weaver said he and his co-owners have a lot of work ahead, but they've been there before and are determined to clean it up.
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"Getting all of this back into place and being able to make it an enjoyable destination for the Tampa Bay would be kind of what we're shooting for right now, to beautify the island, get the tiki hut back up and running and then keep the trash and the vandalism and that kind of stuff under control where we have security and that stuff going on," he said.
Fox News' Ramiro Vargas contributed to this report.